Tag Archives: plaster lamp

1951 Male Reglor Bullfighter Lamp Take Two

Posted on January 8, 2017 by Hepcats Haven

Recently, I decided to replace the light bulb sockets and harps on our Reglor bullfighter lamps. When we originally purchased these lamps, they arrived busted. Fortunately, I was able to restore them. Sometimes, when you restore chalkware lamps that have significant damage, there are hidden weak spots under the surface. When I tried to attach the new bulb socket, the head of the male bullfighter lamp cracked into several pieces. Needless to say, I was completely devastated. For those of you who have restored these lamps might know, it’s a tedious process. Hours of my work literally crumbled in my hands. To make matters worse, upon further examination it appeared that I would be unable to repair the damage.

Once I came to grips with what had happened, I jumped on eBay and was able to purchase a replacement male bullfighter lamp. Fortunately, the seller did not live too far away, and we were able to meet up to pick up the lamp. It’s not often that you can find a same day replacement for a vintage lamp!

That’s not dirt you see, that’s nicotine. You wouldn’t believe how much came off.

The color scheme of the original lamps was orange and brown. These were colors we were never keen on. The lamp we just picked up needed to be repainted, so I took the opportunity to go with a whole new color scheme. The colors I went with are vintage coral and hematite (a graphite color). I think these two colors compliment one another very well.

After about a full day of painting, here is the result.

I decided to add a little more detail to the lamp.

Of course, these aren’t the original lamp shades and we’re not really happy with them. We plan to replace the shades with ones that incorporate the same colors as the lamps.

Here’s the female bullfighter.

This pair compliments our bedroom nicely.

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Pair Of Large Lava Glaze Lamps With Original Shades

Posted on July 21, 2015 by Hepcats Haven

As you may already know, Mel and I are lamp junkies. So, it should be no surprise that we would decorate with numerous lamps. I have always loved this kind of finish on lamps. Some folks call this type of finish volcano, lava or drip glaze. Whatever they call it, I love it.

As usual, I was cruising Craigslist and saw that these were being sold at a shop in Paradise, California. The ad only showed one of these lamps, so I was pleasantly surprised to see two of them!

These lamps are breathtaking in person. I love the shots of cobalt and chartreuse.

I am especially fond of these style lamps because of the secondary lighting behind the cutouts. As with most lamps of this period with this sort of finish, there is crazing.

This set came with the original lampshades that are in fantastic condition. The fabric ring they placed around the shades matches the fabric shade inside the body of the lamp.

These will definitely be conversation pieces.

Here is another set we picked up in Chico last weekend. These are made of heavy plaster unlike the ones above that are made of ceramic.

This set also has secondary lighting inside the main body of the lamps. I need to replace the bulbs inside and it appears it isn’t as easy as just replacing a bulb.

These lamps have the same finishing process as the ones above.

These also have the original shades with them. Both sets have a funkiness to them that I think will give our place a cool vide.

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Posted in Our Collection and tagged 1960's lamp, 1960's light, 1970's lamp, 1970's lighting, 60's lamp, 60's light, 70's lamp, 70's light, 70s lighting, ceramic lamp, drip glaze lamps, drip glaze lighting, drip lamps, lava lamp, lava lighting, MCM Lighting, Mid century lamp, Mid Century Lighting, midcentury lamp, midcentury lighting, plaster lamp, seventies lamp, seventies lamps, seventies light, seventies lighting, sixties lamp, sixties light, sixties lighting, vintage lamp, VIntage Light, volcano lamp, volcano lighting, volcano lights. Bookmark the permalink.

Bo-Low Leopard Lamp Restoration

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Hepcats Haven

Mel and I picked up this Bo-Low lamp sometime back. We had been admiring it for a while at a local antique shop and were finally able to acquire it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find out anything about the Bo-Low Lamp Co.

As you can see, it looks like it traveled around a bit. It also had a chunk of chalk missing from a part of the top of the tree.

I used my usual process to repair it.

The next step was to paint the whole cat a cream color to help even out it’s finish, and so that the new color would take better.

I then applied the main undercoat.

As you can see from this photo, this cat had no real detail and was almost a cream color.

Here is the same head shot after I added detail and color.

Painting the leopard spots are fairly simple. Just make misshapen marks like I did above.

The next step is to apply a small amount of black around parts of the brown to create the tradition leopard spot.

Here is the original.

Here it is after I refinished it.

The original base was just tan so I added a grass effect to the bottom so it would tie in with its awesome shade.

It’s coming along as you can see, just the tail left to complete.

Just adding some finishing touches.

Ta Da! Here it is all done!

We have had this shade sitting around for sometime, and this seems like the perfect shade for this lamp.

I am very happy with how it turned out.

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Posted in Restorations, The Makin's Of Our Pad and tagged 50's lamp, bo lo lamp, Bo-Low Lamp Co, bo-low lamp corp, bow-low corp, bow-low lamp corp, chalkware, chalkware continental, chalkware lamp, chalkware lamp repair, chalkware lamp restoration, chalkware lamps, chalkware reglor, chalkware restoration, Continental Art Company, Continental Art Company Chalkware Lamp, Continental Art Company Plaster Lamp, Continental Lamp, jungle cat lamp, jungle lamp, lamp restoration, leopard lamp, mid century lamp restoration, plaster lamp, plaster lamp repair, Plaster Lamp restoration, plaster lamps, plasto chalkware, plasto lamp, plasto manufacturing, plasto plaster, Reglor, reglor lamp, retro lamp, retro lamp restoration, tiki, tiki lamp, vintage lamp, vintage lamp restoration. Bookmark the permalink.

Mid Century Plasto Mfg. Co. Lamps

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Hepcats Haven

If you have followed us for a while you might remember the Plasto lamp I repaired a while back. This set has a similar styling to the one repaired.

As you can see, we picked up this large two shade Plasto lamp and a smaller single shade Plasto lamp. For some reason I think this was a set of three lamps, but I have no way to verify that.

I can’t tell what the flowing style figural design is, maybe its just abstract. They look like leaves, but I am not sure.

The lamps are in good shape for their age, but they will need a mild resto to bring them back to new.

The lamps seem to have their original shades and are in remarkable shape. The lacing is still complete and there are no burns or staining on the shades.

These will stay in our collection and will have a place of pride in our home. We just love these two lamps!

Here Are Some Quick Picks

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Hepcats Haven

These chairs belonged to the grandfather of the guy I purchased them from. He had them in his man cave. The upholstery job leaves something to be desired. I plan to remove the back rests (they are not original) and redo the seat bottoms in a different color. I tried to find info on the manufacturer but was unsuccessful.

I came across these on Craigslist and knew I wanted them. I love the style of the metal backrests.

There is a lot of surface rust, but a little sand paper and paint will fix that.

I need to figure out where to get new feet for a couple of the stools.

I have seen this style in a table and chair form, but this is the first time I have seen the style in barstool form! I think we will replace the stools that we are currently using with our…..

We purchased this bar a while back and love it. I think I may have blogged about it before, but cant find the post!

Here the bar is in its upright form

Here is the back of it. It has holders for glasses and bottles that lay down when the bar is folded into a coffee table!

Here is what the bar looks like when folded into a coffee table. Such a cool design by the ABCO company!

Here it is all the way folded down. This could slide under a bed for quick and easy storage. This is going under a covered patio of our next place for entertaining.

We picked this up for a quick $40 off of Craigslist as well. It needs some restoring but that will be easy. We have 2 of the pink and 1 brown versions of this lamp, so we thought aqua would be a nice contrast.

I picked this lamp up at one of our local haunts. The lampshade is one we had sitting around. This will go into our booth for resale.

These lamps are our friend Stephen’s. They require repair so we traded for the magazine holder below.

These lamps have damage around the switch but that shouldn’t be too hard to fix. The lampshades for these lamps are in fantastic shape. Stephen is going to throw them on eBay once the repairs are done. These have no maker listed.

Here is a nice jadite set that will be goin’ in the booth.

Thinking I would like to be more proactive in the repair of our radios. I picked up this working Conar model 224 tube tester for $15. In a later post I plan to recover this unit with new stag material.

It appears you can test radio and television tubes. I have never used one of these units, so I hope its self explanatory.

Here is a mauve frieze couch we recently picked up. It is in surprisingly great shape for its age.

I can imagine this in our home with a couple of Heywood Wakefield end tables on each side and a cool looking Carlo above it. We are torn if we will keep it or put it in our booth.

The coolest feature about this couch is that it is a sleeper as well.

There is NO wear to the mattress at all. I don’t think it was ever used!

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Posted in The Makin's Of Our Pad and tagged chalkware lamp, Continental Art Company Chalkware Lamp, Continental Art Company Fairy Lamp, Continental Art Company Lamp, Continental Art Company Plaster Lamp, Continental Chalkware Lamp, Continental Fairy Lamp, Continental Lamp, Continental Plaster Lamp, expand coffee table, expando, expando bar, expando coffee table, expando table, folding bar, frieze couch, frieze sofa, mcm bar, mcm bar stools, mcm coffee table, mcm folding bar, mcm lamp, MCM stools, mcm wire lamp, mid century bar, mid century bar stools, mid century coffee table, mid century couch, mid century folding bar, mid century frieze couch, mid century frieze sofa, mid century hide a bed, Mid century lamp, mid century piggy bank, mid century pullout couch, mid century spice rack, mid century stools, mid century wire lamp, Nopcofoam, novelty piggy bank, plaster lamp, retro bar, retro bar stools, retro coffee table, retro couch, retro folding bar, retro frieze couch, retro frieze sofa, retro hide a bed, retro lamp, retro piggy bank, retro pullout couch, retro sleeper couch, retro spice rack, retro stools, retro wire lamp, tube tester, vintage bar, vintage bar stools, vintage coffee table, vintage couch, vintage folding bar, vintage frieze couch, vintage frieze sofa, vintage hide a bed, vintage lamp, vintage piggy bank, vintage pullout couch, vintage pullout sofa, vintage sleeper couch, vintage sleeper sofa, vintage sofa, vintage spice rack, vintage stools, vintage wire lamp, wire lamp. Bookmark the permalink.

1951 Reglor Fish Lamp Restoration

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Hepcats Haven

This lamp will look fantastic once done. It even has the glass panel that sits in the holder.

Mel and I reached out to a seller on Ebay that had put this lamp on sale many times without any takers (this is a good technique to use with Ebay sellers when they have an item that isn’t selling, usually you can get the item for less). Anyways, the lamp was not in a color that worked with our color palette so we changed it up to match the other Reglor fish lamp I restored earlier.

This is the one already restored and in our bathroom.

We decided to paint it in a similar color scheme so they match the shades and look like they go together. Fish stuff from this time period always seem collectible.

This lamp was in pretty good shape but it had some chips and some paint loss……but no CRACKS!!! Yay!!!

After a good cleaning and a few hours of painting it turned out great! We are soo glad that this restoration is complete.

I also needed to replace the lamp harp and the light bulb socket.

These look great together and will serve us well for years to come.

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Posted in Restorations and tagged Atomic, chalkware lamp, chalkware lamp repair, chalkware lamp restoration, Continental Art Company, lamp restoration, mid century, Moss, plaster lamp, plaster lamp repair, Plaster Lamp restoration, Reglor, retro, vintage. Bookmark the permalink.

Weinberg Horse Lamp Repair

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Hepcats Haven

Here’s the lamp Stephen received after being assured it would be packed very well.

Stephen asked us to repair this rare Horse Weinberg lamp that he had been searching for. If you get a chance, check out his eBay store as he has a lot of really cool items. He was devastated when he opened the box and found that the base was broken. We know his pain all too well as we’ve received many chalkware/plaster lamps shipped to us broken/damaged. Unfortunately, we’re currently dealing with an issue with a cracked pair of Continental Art Company Trillium Flower lamps we purchased on eBay similar to the one we repaired for Camila and Matt.

Oh No!

The lamp is actually made of a terracotta type material. I was able to use the same technique I use to repair chalkware/plaster lamps. However, the material is very porous so I had to use a gel glue that wasn’t quickly absorbed into the lamp. I allowed a couple days for the glue to dry before I filled the break.

Base filled after a few days of drying in the sun.

The most difficult part of any lamp repair is the re-painting. It is very difficult to find an exact color match, especially with black. The slightest difference in the color sticks out like a sore thumb. It is amazing how many different variations of black there is, but we were able to find a pretty spot on match. What also made this repair especially difficult was trying to find an effective technique to duplicate the greyish striated design of the lamp. Mel typically does the detail work on the repairs and I think she did a great job duplicating the the design.

Base after filling and sanding.

It is really important to look at your pieces in different lighting. Take your piece outside in the sun, etc. to make sure the paint has full coverage of the piece.